Mike Condon

Condon was thrust into an unexpectedly major role last season after he was acquired by the Senators in November. With starter Craig Anderson unavailable for large chunks of the campaign due to an ongoing family matter, Condon was tasked with stepping in as his new club’s primary netminder shortly after he arrived in Ottawa. Despite those tough circumstances, the 27-year-old backstop performed admirably in his 42 appearances with the Senators, compiling a 19-14-6 record while registering a 2.54 GAA and a .913 save percentage over that span. Ottawa rewarded that performance by signing Condon to a three-year, $7.2 million contract extension this offseason. he'll remain the Senators’ backup in 2017-18, but he could conceivably take over as the team’s full-time starter in 2018-19, as Anderson is set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

For the second straight year, Condon outplayed an incumbent goalie to earn a larger-than-expected role. In 2014-15, he beat out Joey MacDonald to become the main goalie for the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs; last year, he forced his way onto Montreal’s roster with a sterling training camp, beating out Dustin Tokarski to be Carey Price’s backup. That job typically doesn’t require heavy lifting, but when Price went down with a knee injury in late November, Condon’s burden got a lot heavier. Initially, it looked like the Canadiens had unearthed a goaltending gem from the depths of organized hockey. The Princeton grad went 6-0-2 with a .936 save percentage in his first eight starts, but he couldn’t sustain that level. Indeed, the 25-year-old’s save percentage dropped to .888 in December as it became obvious that Condon needed to stand on his head nightly to earn a victory for the offense-starved Canadiens. It was then that we realized why Condon had been knocking around the ECHL and AHL. Heading into 2016-17, with Price’s health at 100 percent, Condon will need to beat out veteran Al Montoya for the backup role to avoid returning to the minors.